Tag: Murray Stein

Arwind Vasavada (1912-1998) was born and raised in India. In the 1950’s, he traveled to Zurich to study at the Jung Institute and to work in analysis with C.G. Jung. Although he had only a few sessions with Jung, he considered him his guru, a title which Jung himself did not accept in the Indian sense but gave Vasavada nevertheless some important “transmissions,” to put it in the terminology of Hindu tradition. After finishing his training in Zurich, Vasavada returned to India to open an analytic practice. June Singer visited him in India in the early 1970’s and invited him to come to Chicago, an invitation that he gladly accepted. Vasavada lived and worked as a Jungian analyst in Chicago through the 1970’s and 1980’s, and he was a founding member of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts and the Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts. He had a strong and dedicated following of students in Chicago until he retired in the early 1990’s and moved to his son’s home in the state of Washington. After that he visited Chicago intermittently until his death (in India) in 1998.

In the 1980’s, analysts Josip Pasic and Murray Stein held a series of discussions with Vasavada in Pasic’s home, where they were filmed for posterity. The dialogues revolved in general around analytical psychology and its similarities with and differences from the traditions of the East (i.e., India). The following is an excerpt from one of these conversations.

This episode is part one of the series The Jungian Psyche: A Deeper Look at Analytical Psychology. The course, recorded in 1991, offers a careful exploration of some of Jung’s key theoretical texts. Aimed at giving the advanced student of analytical psychology a greater appreciation of the details of Jung’s theoretical model of the psyche, the class proceeds in a systematic fashion through the basic concepts and considers how they interrelate to form a whole. Suggested readings from Jung’s Collected Works are announced at the start of each class section. During this talk Dr. Stein discusses Jung’s Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self andPsychological Types, the theory, historical use, and emergence of the term ego, and the theory of complexes.

Murray Stein, Ph.D. is a training analyst at the International School for Analytical Psychology in Zurich, Switzerland. His most recent publications include The Principle of Individuation, Jung’s Map of the Soul, and The Edinburgh International Encyclopaedia of Psychoanalysis (Editor of the Jungian sections, with Ross Skelton as General Editor). He lectures internationally on topics related to Analytical Psychology and its applications in the contemporary world. Dr. Stein is a graduate of Yale University (B.A. and M.Div.), the University of Chicago (Ph.D., in Religion and Psychological Studies), and the C.G. Jung Institut-Zurich. He is a founding member of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts and Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts. He has been the president of the International Association for Analytical Psychology (2001-4), and is presently a member of the Swiss Society for Analytical Psychology and President of the International School of Analytical Psychology, Zurich.